


heather mcnamara's firsts & lasts

by loveinheaven



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Depressing, F/F, Firsts, Forgive Me, Friends to Lovers, Heavy Angst, Hospitals, Memories, Modern Era, Please Don't Hate Me, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Triggers, kind of a vent piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 01:08:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17132156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveinheaven/pseuds/loveinheaven
Summary: heather mcnamara is killing herself.she's already swallowed the pills.now she waits, and thinks about all the things she's already done for the last time.//modern au. major trigger warning.//





	heather mcnamara's firsts & lasts

**Author's Note:**

> in case you didn't believe me when i typed it in the description, MAJOR trigger warning. please stay safe.  
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**the first time heather mcnamara cried** was when she was born, without a doubt. 

the last time was- is- right now, as she closes her eyes.

 

**she fell in love for the first time** at ten years old,

or so she thought.

ten-year-olds don't know much about love.

heather had an idea that she was quite interested in kurt kelley, all-star little league player.

that was before he took up football.

 

she's still in love. she convinced herself that she'd die in love,

but not in love with kurt kelly.

desperately, hopelessly, drunk-on-her-emotions in love with

veronica

fucking

sawyer

and that was one of the only things that made her feel as though she was redeemable.

 

heather duke was always on her mind, though,

because duke was one of-

no-

_the_ reason mac believed so strongly that veronica would forever fail to love her back,

as would anyone.

loving a misfit was impossible.

 

**the first time she'd ever spoken to heather duke** was in kindergarten.

 

the little girl in yellow was sobbing because she'd cut her finger with a pair of safety scissors

and the girl in green sat down next to her with a band-aid in hand and insisted that she stop crying because 'band-aids fix everything'.

they bonded over having the same name, and then duke offered to introduce mac to another girl who was 'meant to be her friend',

as she liked to say.

duke was a precocious six-year-old.

 

**the last time she'd ever spoken to heather duke** was over the phone less than thirty minutes ago.

she called the girl she thought would be there for her,

in a crying panic

and begged for help and pleaded for someone to talk to

and the last thing she ever heard duke say to her was

"not a single person would care if you killed yourself tonight"

and ironically enough,

that made heather mcnamara's cheeks pale with nausea.

she was almost  _green_.

 

she'd thought about that a lot.

how, looking at the chain of command,

if chandler was  ~~dead~~ gone,

wouldn't that make duke the new chandler

and mac the new duke?

 

heather mcnamara would die before she turned into a monster like duke.

and in a frenzied whirlwind of emotion and desperation and turmoil and wishing a band-aid could repair all the damage that had already been done,

and _heather duke was convincing her to go on and swallow the pills,_

she saw to it that she wouldn't live long enough to see power go to her head.

 

heather chandler radiated power from day one.

**the first interaction between chandler and mcnamara-**

or, the first interaction between them without duke present-

was in the spring of their kindergarten year.

that was back before heather mcnamara found the color yellow to be her favorite-

she didn't have a favorite, as a matter of fact.

she wore every color, all at once, and it took until the spring of kindergarten for chandler to advise her against doing so,

saying that

'you look prettier in a color that matches your hair. yellow is like sunshine and so are you.'

 

**the second-to-last interaction between chandler and mcnamara,**

at least, the last one in which chandler responded

was after a party.

mac hugged chandler tightly as she felt her phone alert her for her uber,

and chandler hugged back.

she knew chandler loved her,

and mac loved chandler to death.

after all, heather chandler was one of the only people in the world who would not only put up with mcnamara's bullshit every day,

but wouldn't trade it for the world.

 

**the last interaction between chandler and mcnamara** was three minutes ago.

through tears and shaking hands and vision going blurry,

heather texted her  ~~dead~~ late friend

_i'll see you soon <3_

before breaking down in a fit of angry tears, 

destroyed at the idea of

death

being the only way she'd ever see her friend again

and then her tears were interrupted.

 

veronica sawyer had a knack for interrupting suicides.

this had happened once before, the first time heather tried to take her life.

veronica wouldn't let her go through with it because

'you're worth so much more than a statistic'

and- though she hated to admit it-

heather never believed her.

 

**the first time heather ever saw veronica,**

her eyes went wide.

a nearly-perfect girl in adorably imperfect clothes 

and even though the other heathers were making fun of her for it,

heather mcnamara took a liking to

veronica sawyer's

navy fabric headband.

 

heather was the one to offer up the idea of wrapping that headband around itself a few times as a makeshift scrunchie

and still,

every now and again,

heather managed to notice that veronica will wear that headband in lieu of a scrunchie.

 

**the second-to-last interaction between heather mcnamara and veronica sawyer**

 was thirteen minutes ago exactly.

 

incoming text message from veronica sawyer:

_hey, duke said something about you, are you okay???_

 

heather mcnamara:

_no i'm sorry i'm not_

 

veronica sawyer:

_to what degree are you not okay???_

 

heather had to wait for a moment before replying. she didn't know.

she never thought there was a measurement of the intensity of pain like this.

her scale just went from bad to worse.

 

she typed.

 

heather mcnamara:

_i did it and i'm sorry and you deserve to know that i love you_

 

veronica sawyer:

_i love you too, but what'd you do??_

 

heather mcnamara:

_i love you as more than a friend!!_

 

veronica had begun to cry on her end of the conversation. her hands trembled too much to even read her screen.

she pressed the little phone icon next to heather's name. 

the phone began to ring.

 

heather picked up the phone and the only noise she could produce was a choked-back whimper of veronica's name.

 

"what the hell did you do?" veronica asked lowly, cutting her off, her voice shaking. heather expected to hear a yell.

 

she was grateful for that. she loved veronica's composure.

maybe she wasn't composed, but the medicine was starting to turn everything blurry now,

and not because of tears.

now,

heather couldn't cry if she wanted to.

 

"i took the whole fucking bottle," heather said, keeling over.

"i feel kinda sick now but that means it's working."

 

veronica never thought she'd  _hope_ for a heather to vomit.

but she did.

she wanted heather alive

even if heather didn't want  _herself_

alive.

 

"look, i'm calling 911, okay? i'm gonna hang up and call you back in, like, two minutes,"

veronica said

in between hitched breaths. she didn't want heather to see how terrified she was.

 

"i can't lose you. if you can't stay alive for yourself, do it for me?"

she hung up the phone.

 

heather laid back, feeling her breathing slow.

sleep was drawing her in,

the cottony feeling in her head lulling her

and she closed her eyes.

 

she wanted to go,

she wanted to go,

she wanted to go.

 

she was barely fazed by her phone vibrating next to her,

alerting her of an incoming call

from veronica sawyer.

 

sirens filled her otherwise empty head

as flashing lights shone through her window in red and blue-

_chandler and veronica,_  she thought dully, her thoughts mostly absent by now. she was so close to gone.

_i love them. i love them both so fucking much._

 

**the last interaction between heather mcnamara and veronica sawyer**

~~was~~ is

right now,

with a tearful veronica holding a barely-present heather in her arms

on the ambulance

 

and heather realizes right then that she doesn't want to die.

**Author's Note:**

> uhhh please lmk what you think <3


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